Angular distributions of leptons from J/psi's produced in 920- GeV fixed-target proton-nucleus collisions

The HERA-B collaboration Abt, I. ; Adams, M. ; Agari, M. ; et al.
Eur.Phys.J.C 60 (2009) 517-524, 2009.
Inspire Record 810555 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.57473

A study of the angular distributions of leptons from decays of J/psi's produced in p-C and p-W collisions at sqrt{s}=41.6 GeV has been performed in the Feynman-x region -0.34 < x_F < 0.14 and for transverse momentum up to 5.4 GeV/c. The data were collected by the HERA-B experiment at the HERA proton ring of the DESY laboratory. The results, based on a clean selection of 2.3 x 10^5 J/psi's reconstructed in both the e^+ e^- and mu^+ mu^- decay channels, indicate that J/psi's are produced with longitudinal polarization. The magnitude of the effect is maximal at low p_T. For p_T >1 GeV/c a significant dependence on the reference frame is found: the polar anisotropy is more pronounced in the Collins-Soper frame and almost vanishes in the helicity frame, where, instead, a significant azimuthal anisotropy arises.

9 data tables

Output parameters obtained by fitting the distributions.

Values of the parameters Lambda_theta, Lambda_phi et Lambda_theta_phi measured in the Collins-Soper frame as functions of the average reconstructed p_T for combined carbon and tungsten data.

Values of the parameters Lambda_theta, Lambda_phi et Lambda_theta_phi measured in the Collins-Soper frame as functions of the average reconstructed x_F for combined carbon and tungsten data.

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